


May We Meet Again

by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because we all need a palette cleanse from whatever that was, Canon Divergent, F/M, I Reject Canon, Pining, Season 7 fix-it, Slow Burn, Temporary Death, There will be some dropship scenes, and make my own out of spite, because gdi there needs to be joy, but that was a lie, maybe Jason's definition of platonic, they think unrequited love, things suck but then they're happy, time jumps, two idiots in love, which is deep love obviously, who thinks the other just love them 'plantonically', you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 07:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30052278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky/pseuds/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
Summary: “Be the good guys.” Those they loved taken too early left a legacy to protect that Clarke, Bellamy, and the survivors of Earth’s destruction vowed to uphold. However, when a collection of children ask the survivors to take them ‘home,’ a dark side of the moon they’re living on is revealed. Not only is Sanctum not the only living colony in the Universe, history between the two may send everyone left alive into a war that will decimate the human race.Season 7 Fix-it fic I needed to write for closure.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 15
Kudos: 36





	May We Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> Hello loves! 
> 
> If you follow me on Tumblr, you know I've been planning this for quite some time, but struggle writing it. Then, after the interview with Bob and Eliza, I got pushed over the edge to finally sit down and do this. So here it is: my version of Season 7! It will include some things, but also go on a completely different trajectory, as well as add some elements I think were left behind.
> 
> Also, please know that while this picks up immediately after S6, Becho will end very quickly because I do not want to write it. So if you are here for Becho, I do not recommend this fic! 
> 
> After all the toil, I wanted to give Bellarke the ending they deserved. And after today, it's clear they deserved much more. I hope you're ready!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fight against the religious cult is over, all is not peaceful as Clarke and the survivors of earth had hoped. The various factions are on the brink of infighting due to an unlikely individual. Plus, somehow there is an entire group with no allegiance, who asks one chilling question: “Are you here to take us home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The fix it I’ve had planned for ages, but needed to sit down and write. If you follow me on Tumblr, you’ve probably known about this because I split up the Chapters into “Episodes” and gave them little episode summaries – as if I were writing the show itself. So it is planned out, I actually know exactly what’s going to happen, in some vain attempt to make myself feel better about one of the worst final seasons I’ve ever experienced. I’m even trying to do the A, B, and C plot – you’ll notice it’s not just Bellamy and Clarke whose POVs I’m writing, unlike all my other fics.
> 
> There will be some similarities and differences from the show – as you will notice. I have several pages in a notebook about everyone’s story arcs and where I want things to go. A couple things:
> 
> 1\. This takes place a little before the ‘hug’ in the S6 finale and is a little different.  
> 2\. Octavia’s past (with Diyoza and Hope in S6) remains the same – but I’m changing the groups up a bit – mainly so I can write characters I like. It’s selfish, but I personally was not interested in the Hope – Echo – Gabriel triad.   
> 3\. I’m handling Shaedheda a little differently because I thought it was a bit of a lost opportunity to not have a Wanheda vs. Shaedheda interaction / showdown. I thought there would be more when Clarke nearly lit Sanctum on fire, but then it simply… never happened?  
> 4\. I’m going to do some flashbacks, mainly so I can write characters I love – and I wish they would’ve done that in the final season! Brought back Wells, Monty, Jasper… you know?  
> 5\. There will be one massive difference in Bardo, but I’m not going to say because it’d be a huge spoiler lol.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! I’m making this because I need closure with the whole thing – I was so furious at the end, but I can’t let it go. I need to make my own ending, you know?

** MAY WE MEET AGAIN **

_By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

EPISODE ONE

_In Peace_

The world is made up of strings.

Strings of various shapes, strings that can hold, strings that can break, and strings that wrap people together. Strings that pull people closer, wrapping around their ankles until they’re anchored together, unable to step away. These strings swirl around the Universe, waiting to get knotted.

Waiting to break.

But when they curl and bring people together, the strings are far more alive. They’re made up of starlight, they’re made up of moondust, and they’re made up of love. Wrapped with it, even.

Pulling people closer together. Those always meant to be.

***

_YEAR 2143_

As he walks down the hallway, Russell feels a bit of anxiety in his chest. It’s a familiar feeling, one of which has become his close friend over the years. It’s the same with the guilt, about the joy he felt whenever a child was born with the black blood needed to keep his family alive. That guilt slowly ebbed over the years, as time dripped away in endless numbers behind him and even more in front.

Plus, it’s hard to feel guilt for something as inconsequential as manipulation, after what he did to his family.

It’s easy to get rid of the good pieces of yourself, once you start handing them out. When the bar continues to escape you, you can decide not to see it anymore.

So as he hears his heart pounding, Russell reminds himself that what he’s doing is simply another thing to protect the life that they’ve built. He can’t say he cares for the décor – Russel never really was one for the clinical feel. As he makes his way down the hallway, it reminds him of the labs he worked in that always made him feel slightly itchy. In fact, he was quite pleased when he was sent on his mission for field work, so he wouldn’t have to see the portrait of the Center’s founder on his way into work every.

God, that felt like a lifetime ago. Or rather, many lifetimes.

“When you see the Shepherd, you must refer to him as The Shepherd.”

Russell is startled out of his thoughts at a gruff voice. He looks up to see a figure in a white robe. It’s rather silly, if one were to ask him. Of course no one does, and he’s left contemplating what a proper response would be in this situation. The entire meeting was a giant game of chess. Russell cannot simply be thinking about the conversation in front of him, but three moves ahead. It’s necessary in these kinds of games.

“I understand.” Is what he decides on.

“You also must be searched before meeting The Shepherd.”

Russel nods curtly, the petty side of him coming up with a few remarks he wish he could say. Instead of saying them, he allows himself to be patted down, lifting his chin as if he doesn’t even care to be in the same room with them. Once they deem him to be acceptable, they usher him inside. Russell can’t help but be completely unimpressed. He knows they’re trying to intimidate him, and it’s quite frankly laughable. He’s hundreds of years old. They may not know this, but it’s almost offensive to him.

He’s led into another room that is different than all the others. The decoration is sparse, but compared to the rest of the facility, the singular painting in the back room seems so out of place that he can’t help but stare at it. It’s simple, nothing more than a tree. A tree whose branches are covered in spindly leaves so he can see the thin branches stretching toward the sky. Except the sky isn’t anything he’s ever seen before. It’s blood red, a color that isn’t even achieved with the red sun. It’s as if the color itself drips onto the leaves, painting the world in blood.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Russell is ashamed to say he startles at the noise, turning around to see the figure step forward. He frowns at the man. “You’re not what I expected.”

The Shepherd moves calculatedly, as if every aspect of this meeting, he knows in his head. It strikes Russell that while the guards underestimated him, he may have underestimated his host, no matter his appearance. “And you’re exactly what I expected.” The man states, his eyes flitting up and down. “I would expect no less from a man who has been alive for multiple lifetimes. Then again, so have I. Though I haven’t experienced the multiple faces. That is a new trick.”

“Not a trick.” Russell states. “Not a trick at all.”

“My mistake. Here I thought being able to take over the mind of your own people was a feat of science. But if you cringe at this sort of discussion, you may not like where I’m going to be taking you.”

Russell frowns, still not sure he should even move. Clearly the man in front of him is playing a game of chess. Something he’s never been particularly good at – he’s always busied himself with science and saw no point in those sort of childish games – and now wishes he hadn’t been so critical. “Where might that be?”

The man does nothing more than grin, flicking his fingers to follow him down the sterile hallway of the planet of Bardo to which he’s been invited. Russell knows that there is a larger game to be played, but he’s annoyed. “You summon me to this planet without the option of rejection, and now will not even give me the courtesy of explaining your intention.”

“Intention will arrive when I’m ready to divulge it. In the meantime, allow me this drama. I’ve been in cryogenic sleep for such a long time, it’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun.”

“I don’t understand how any of this could be perceived as fun.” Russell states. “Immortality isn’t for pleasure, it’s for the survival of your people.”

The man stops. He’s stiller than Russell expects, as if time has carved him into a marble he’s now becoming. “Ah,” the man says. “I see what you’ve shrouded yourself with.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The man turns around slowly. “It’s interesting that the lies we tell ourselves are the ones that are the least convincing.”

“Listen—”

“You trust no one else to keep your legacy alive? You don’t think there is another human who can do what you’ve done?” The man’s mouth stretches into a smile. “You and I are more alike then you think. Which is good for me, because that means this conversation is going to go smoother than I expected.”

He flicks his fingers again for Russell to follow, to which he’s annoyed he has no other choice but to do so. “You see, I have my own plans as well, which is why I’ve asked you to come today. Though, I think for the relationship, it’s best if we start from the same playing field. I know everything about you – Russell Lightbourne, team leader of Mission Team Alpha. Although, you look quite different than your picture. Which body are you on?”

Russell doesn’t respond, clenching his jaw to keep from saying something fatal in someone else’s world.

“You see, I’ve been interested in your work. Not you’re your on the planet – that is all information I’ve had for quite some time, but—” he steps closer, his hand reaching out. Tapping the back of the man’s neck, the man grins as Russell flinches. “Mind drives, correct?”

“You’ve been spying on me?” Russell seethes.

“It’d be foolish to think that anything in this galaxy happens without me knowing about it. So let’s start fresh.”

The man reaches a door and splays his hand out on it. “My name is Bill. Welcome to Bardo. I have a proposition for you.”

Shoving the door open, Bill reveals a lab. Russell’s mouth drops as he takes it all in. Horror, interest, panic, and fear – all emotions that course through him the more he examines the space. “A proposition?” He manages as calming as possible. “What sort?”

“That’s why I asked you to visit and what I’d like to speak to you about. You need citizens, I need a… backup system, if you will.”

***

_YEAR 2149_

It’s a rare moment of quiet, of solitude.

Clarke runs her charcoal down the page of the paper she found in the corners of the Dropship – the other side had nothing more than the instructions of how to deal if the ship crashed. The ship already landed – in fact, she’d argue it crashed itself, so she couldn’t think of a single reason why this particular piece of paper would be useful. So, instead, she draws, line after line. It calms her in a way that she hasn’t been since landing on Earth, all of those she needs to protect in danger day by day.

Clarke listens to the birds and the wind rush through the trees. The Ground is as she expected it, and nothing at all. The way it smells is more clear and bright than she ever imagined with years of recycled air. The trees are grander, the sun brighter, the earth grittier underneath her toes. In fact, her boots are cast to the side, socks draped over the edges as she wiggles her toes until they’re semi-buried. It’s magical and cold and infinite.

“What the actual _fuck_ are you doing?”

Ah, all good things must end, as they say.

Clarke doesn’t need to look up from her sketch to know who exactly is storming her way, barreling through the tree line in an aggressive sort of way that she’s known to recognize. She ignores Bellamy because she can and it’s the one small amount of petulance she feels like she can get away with without losing too much of her authority. “I thought it was quite obvious,” she mutters, continuing to try and catch the way the trees move. It’s so much different from the Ark, with its geometric lines and cold walls. The Ground was, for lack of any other description, _alive._

“I’m not here to joke around with you.” Bellamy snaps, looming over her.

She finally looks up and sighs. He looks about as humorous as she usually feels, disdain and frustration etched all over his face. “That’s fine, I’ve been told my sense of humor leaves something to be desired.”

The corner of his mouth twitches up, but Bellamy seems to catch it. Clarke counts it as a win, though. There are so few things to cause joy in this moment, she has to take them where she can. “Clarke, you are outside the wall, _by yourself._ We literally came up with the rule together. What the hell are you thinking?”

“Well, I’m not by myself anymore, am I? Come sit.” She states, patting the ground next to her.

Bellamy opens his mouth to argue but seems so caught off guard by her nonchalant behavior that he does something that Clarke never would’ve expected: he listens.

With a quick glance around them and an exasperated huff for good measure, Bellamy lowers until he’s sitting next to Clarke, clearly as surprised by his actions as she is. Clarke can’t help but give him a genuine smile, the two of them thrown off by the situation they’ve seemingly accidentally gotten themselves in. Bellamy himself even laughs a bit, ducking under the strap of his gun so it’s off his shoulders and can rest on his lap. “What are you doing out here? I’ve thought you were a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them Clarke.”

Clarke snorts. “What are the things you’ve thought of me, Bellamy?”

“That’s,” he shakes his head. “So not the point. What are you doing here, outside the wall? The Grounders could come and you’d be by yourself and we need a medic, in case you haven’t noticed. Or – what if someone got hurt and no one could find you!”

“Come on, what do you take me for, Bellamy?” Clarke sighs. Pulling the radio out of her pocket, the faint voices of Jasper and Monty crackle back and forth.

_“Oh. My. God. Motha. Fuckin’. Walnuts.”_

_“Nuttiest walls that have ever nutted.”_

_“Dude.”_

_“Dude.”_

Giggles explode from the crackling radio and Clarke throws Bellamy a look. “I think everyone’s fine.”

Running his hands down his face, he breathes, “What complete fucking morons.”

“Yeah, well, they mean well.”

“I feel like I’m going to have to wrangle them so they don’t accidentally fall off of a cliff.”

“That may happen,” Clarke admits. “They may wander off a cliff or light themselves on fire, but it’ll never come from a vindictive place.”

“ _That’s_ supposed to make me feel better?”

“Doesn’t it though?” Clarke offers.

She means it. Clarke really does. Because of all the things they have to worry about, Jasper and Monty’s hearts aren’t one of them. And for that she’s eternally grateful.

Perhaps it’s because she’s in an artistic headspace, or maybe it’s because she’s feeling particularly wistful, but it’s the first time she’s truly looked at Bellamy as a whole. Sure, she’s always thought he was attractive in that sort of hate sex kind of way, but she’s never really given it much thought. So many terrible things happened since they landed on the ground, her thoughts were always taken elsewhere.

But in this moment, on this day, Clarke can’t help but notice how beautiful Bellamy is. His skin is lined with a thin sheen of sweat and his clothes are covered in several days worth of dirt, but none of that really matters. His eyes carry stories that she finds that she wants to hear and hands lift the weight of a heavier world.

Her silence seems to have shaken him. “What are you looking at?” He asks sheepishly.

“You.”

He seems to be startled by her forward answer. “What about me?”

Clarke opens her mouth, almost to tell him the thoughts that are running through her head. She isn’t sure what stops hers, but maybe she simply isn’t ready. She isn’t ready to open the door that a part of her is saying to wrench open.

Because it feels great.

Greater than anything she could fathom. So great, Clarke is mildly afraid of it. Because he’s looking at her, waiting for her to answer, and not shying away.

In a world etched with the stories of lost love, she thinks they could write their own with sunken words.

“I-I just think,” Clarke starts, refusing to look away. “I just think that I’m glad you’re here.”

Bellamy’s brows furrow at that. It’s as if he knows that’s not what she meant to say, but he doesn’t argue against it regardless. “A sentence I never thought you’d say.”

Clarke tilts her head up, almost challengingly. “You don’t think I can be nice?”

“I think you can be plenty nice. I just didn’t think you could direct it toward me.”

“I could make fun of you, if you like.” Clarke offers, finally tearing her gaze away. “Could ask if you are bringing all those girls back to your tent because you’re cold.”

Bellamy barks out a laugh – a real, glorious laugh that she’d never heard before – and says, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Clarke Griffin was jealous.”

Clarke’s pencil freezes against the paper. “Good thing you know better then.” She states, turning back toward him.

The corners of his mouth turn up in that infuriating way she’s come to recognize as him challenging her. “Good thing indeed.”

Clarke returns to her drawing. Bellamy doesn’t say anything when she does so, nor does he spit anymore vitriol in her direction, which she’s appreciative of. He isn’t even pressuring her to talk, the two of them sitting in the first peaceful silence she’s had since they’ve landed. Clarke feels herself calm as she sits next to him, a part of her never wanting this bubble in the forest to end. Even Bellamy’s tension seems to filter out, the man leaning against the tree she was sitting under, his gaze lifted to the sky. “Sometimes I feel like Icarus,” she hears him say under his breath, not looking at her.

Clarke isn’t sure if she’s meant to hear that. Except he’s said it and a part of her wonders if this was his way of extending an olive branch. Offering something of his own in a world of quiet she built for herself. So, she focuses on him as his chin is lifted, like someone asking the gods why there is suffering. “I promise I’ll let you know if you get too close to the sun.”

Bellamy’s head whips down when she says this, eyes widened.

“It would be a shame to waste your wings.”

She worries the moment the words have escaped her lips that she’s said too much. He stares at her in a way she’s never been looked upon before. So much so, it’s almost unraveling. She can’t put words to his expression, for there are galaxies behind his eyes. “Clarke,” he breathes and she feels like their entire story is being laid out before her.

She doesn’t look away though. Clarke wants to live in this moment. This moment of intense quiet, this moment of intense feeling. A universe they make themselves.

A universe they have yet to explore.

“Please don’t go out by yourself anymore.”

Like Clarke’s words, she has a suspicion that they aren’t ones he meant to say. In fact, there’s pain behind his eyes and for the first time, he truly looks like the boy he is. “I can take care of myself, Bellamy.” Clarke says, but there’s no heat in it. She feels the need to argue with him because it’s Bellamy fucking Blake, but there is no fire for confrontation within her bones. Nothing more than a mere fondness, a solid foundation of earth.

“Please.”

There is no anger in the word. No frustration, no challenge. Just a single word that takes Clarke’s breath away.

“Okay.”

Bellamy nods, clear relief on his face when she says it. “Okay,” he repeats, sucking in a breath. “Okay.”

Clarke has to look away because it’s too much. Of something, she isn’t sure of yet, but it’s overwhelming her, taking her over. “Do you think we’ll ever get to a place where we’re not just surviving? That… that the next day is guaranteed and not a gift?”

Bellamy shifts next to her. “I don’t know. But,” he swallows. “It’s what I wished for.”

His words trail like the stardust of the sky so long ago.

***

_PRESENT_

The world is _loud_ and not in a way that Bellamy can handle.

People are screaming and cheering and crying and it’s all a mess of emotion and noise that makes him want to find a quiet place to be alone. “Bellamy!” He hears his name and he can’t help but shrink at that. His bones are tired, his mind is tired, Bellamy is just…tired. He’s tired of fighting, he’s tired of grieving, he’s tired of sacrificing. All he wants to do is survey the field and see the one person who can comfort him, the one person who could calm him down as he’s spiraling.

Someone grabs him and whirls him around, Bellamy immediately knowing it isn’t who he’s looking for. It’s too aggressive, too direct. When he’s face-to-face with Echo, he swallows, a guilt that he’d been pushing down alive with a fury. “Bellamy, are you alright?” She asks frantically, her hands running down his body as she tries to examine him.

He grabs her hands without thinking and brings them off his body. Echo stills and looks at him as he does so, in that penetrating sort of way that he’s come to recognize as her observing him with the spy-like care. He doesn’t care for it – it makes him feel more exposed and vulnerable than safe, but he’s never been able to put those words out there. “I’m fine,” he manages, letting go of her hands. They seem to drop to her sides, carefully, calculatedly.

“Are you.” She states.

There is so much happening underneath her words. There are fights, there are arguments, there are ends to sentences. Bellamy stands a foot apart from her, unsure of what to say, Echo unsure of what to do.

“Bellamy! Echo!” Both of them startle at their names, caught in a limbo of their own making.

Echo doesn’t tear her gaze away from him when she says, “I’m going to make sure that they’re alright.” As if she already knew he wouldn’t follow. Maybe she did.

She probably did.

Instead, Bellamy is still looking around, hoping to find the one person who may make him feel like it’ll be okay.

It didn’t matter, in the end.

The person found him.

Clarke collides with him, her body pressed against his tightly, her arms wrapping around his neck as if it’s the only thing tying her to the world. He wraps his arms around her and is able to release a shuddering breath, all of his panic and anxiety filtering out with every second. Even when he brought her back, even when he had her in his arms in the forest, Bellamy had to give her up again. She left and he was without her, in the never-ending game the two of them played.

So he holds her.

Because he doesn’t know if tomorrow will be a gift they’re given.

Squeezing her tighter against him, Bellamy knows he can breathe now. Maybe it’s not fair, maybe he’s selfish, but he can’t help the way his entire world relaxes. Finally calm, finally aligned.

She breaks away before he does, because he thinks he could hold her forever. Clarke doesn’t let go though. Her hands grip the sides of his arms like she needs it as much as he does, her eyes filled with tears. She’s trembling, her eyes are encased in deep circles, and he thinks at any moment, she may collapse. But she’s okay and he can catch her.

He can catch her.

With a haunted smile, she says, “Do you think we’ll ever get to a place where we’re not just surviving?”

She asked him this, so many years before. So many worlds before. He thought that the two of them would be gone by now – at the bare minimum, he would. But they were alive and here and together.

He gives her a half-hearted chuckle. “It’s what I wished for.”

“Perhaps you should wish harder.”

“Ah, yes, that’s the problem with everything. The strength at which I wish for things.” Bellamy sighs, holding her a bit closer than he usually would dare to. “If the world was persuaded by my mere wishing, there would be a lot of things that would be different.”

It’s a dangerous line he’s walking, but he can’t bring himself to care. Words upon words, innuendo that is easily dissected, all of which being true.

“Would be a shame to waste those wings.” She whispers.

The ghost of a lifetime they lived so long ago.

He remembers when she said that to him before. He was scared, he was exhausted, and he was ready to fight anyone who came between him and his sister. Now? He supposes not much has changed. He was scared, sure. Exhausted, absolutely.

But no longer ready to fight.

He wanted to put his weapons down, his body desperately cried out for rest.

Except she says this to him and he feels everything he felt that day in the woods. His heart skips a beat and he wants to pour himself out until there is nothing left.

Bellamy opens his mouth, to say something – anything. There are so many different times and worlds where he wondered if he had just… _said something_. At the Dropship, after Mount Weather… when she went to the fucking radio tower. Time and time again, he was presented opportunities that he threw away, feeling as if he’d get a quieter, more intimate moment. Something that seemed to fit the monumental words he wanted to say to her, that spanned over lifetimes.

“Murderer!”

He stills.

That’s the problem with waiting for the perfect moment. There will always be a crisis, always be words louder than his.

Never greater.

No, he can hide the greatness of what he feels inside himself, like he always has. He’s become an expect – a professional of masking thoughts too powerful for the world. Like galaxies are built inside him and course through his blood.

Clarke lets go of his arm and he already misses the touch. But with her left arm, she turns him toward the direction of the noise, whipping a look in his direction. He sees a familiar face be shoved into the center of Sanctum, stumbling but not enough to fall to the ground. “Murderer!”

Gabriel straightens after the force, his face resigned as he faces those that are starting to gather around him. “We have to help,” Clarke breathes, sprinting off.

She holds him as long as she can before letting go.

He watches her run for a second before following her.

Golden light hitting her hair, sure movements of her body.

The woman he almost lost, mere days ago.

Bellamy Blake loves Clarke Griffin.

It’s a truth.

It’s truth, just as simple as other truths Bellamy knows. He knows that he needs oxygen to continue to live, he knows that he will die without water… he knows that he loves Clarke Griffin.

She’s wedged herself underneath his ribcage, somewhere by his heart. It spanned lifetimes, it spanned galaxies, but she was always there.

_She was always there._

Sprinting to catch up, Bellamy tries to ignore the words that are rolling around in his head, over and over again. He has to ignore it, because they just finished their last crisis and now are moving toward their next. He has to ignore it because he loves her… and being on the single end of love is painful.

He know Clarke loves him, but he could never dream in the way he wants. He knows she considers him her family, and maybe that is the only thing he’ll ever be. He’ll be standing on the outside, the whisper of what could be spinning around his head like stardust in the sky. Stardust weaving themselves into new stars of possibilities he could never have.

“—Stop!” Clarke is shouting, placing herself in between someone who is aggressively moving toward Gabriel. “Stop, what are you doing?”

“Get out of my way, you stupid bi—”

“I would suggest you rethink the end of that sentence.” Bellamy snaps, grabbing the man’s arm and wrenching it behind his back. “I don’t take kindly to that sort of language aimed at people I love.”

It tumbles out of him.

An easy sort of word, as if he was always supposed to use it in a sentence with Clarke. When he says it, it’s as if he’s been releasing a breath he’s held for years. Perhaps he has. He’s given it to the world, and hopes it won’t crush him.

Clarke’s head whips up, but he can’t bring himself to look at her. Not now.

The man lets out an angry howl and slips out of Bellamy’s grip, shoving him back. He stumbles a few steps, but Clarke is there to place a hand in between his shoulder blades. “He is a murderer!” The man shouts, jabbing a finger in Gabriel’s direction. “He said that he was done with it all, that he was trying to be better than the fake gods in Sanctum! But he _stole_ that body, he is no better than the rest of them!”

“You don’t understand!” Clarke shouts, pushing past Bellamy. Bellamy is almost exasperated by this move – he sometimes wishes she would just stay _put_ , but then again, she wouldn’t be Clarke if she did.

“It’s okay,” Gabriel states behind them.

Both Clarke and Bellamy whip around at that, Clarke’s eyes wild and frantic in that way he’s grown to recognize is the panic of losing someone. “Gabriel, no—” Clarke yells, whirling on him. “I will not let you just… _throw_ yourself to whomever as some sort of penance for something you think you deserve!”

“It’s true, I did not lie to them… but I didn’t tell them the whole truth. Isn’t that the same thing, Clarke?”

She recoils. Bellamy can see the pain rolling off of her as she stills. “Did you ask for it?” Clarke asks, although the words are so whispered and pained, he wonders if she’s truly asking him. “Did you… ask for your body to be taken?”

Gabriel puts his hands up, moving closer. “Clarke, it is nowhere near the same thing, you and I.”

“That isn’t—”

“You had no idea what was happening. I did.”

“You didn’t!” Clarke shouts. “Maybe in the beginning, but you never asked for this! And I will not let them destroy you for it!”

She swallows and straightens.

Everyone is in the vicinity.

Bellamy can see them – he can see Murphy, Raven, Emori, and Echo. He can see Miller, Madi, and Jordan. He can see them all, turning toward the commotion.

Logically, Bellamy knows Clarke is not a tall woman. She doesn’t loom over those she stands next to, shadowing their faces with her height. Except she does. She builds herself up and towers over people, her conviction and power dwarfing those around her.

“Enough!” She cries, her eyes watering. “Enough with sides, enough with that violence! Haven’t you had enough for today? Are you not satiated with the destruction?” Clarke exclaims. “Have you not had enough?”

Clarke is not small. She’s small like a butterfly’s wing is small. Delicate, but capable of changing the world.

Bellamy moves toward Gabriel, the two men a few meters away from her. Gabriel leans in. “She’s not going to let me give myself up, is she?”

Bellamy snorts. “For someone who is the first person to offer herself up, she’s very annoying about others doing the same.”

Gabriel leans back a bit and crosses his arms. “How hypocritical.”

“Right?”

“Today there has been enough death! Enough blood spilt on a land meant for peace. Just… enough!” Clarke’s eyes shine with tears. “Enough.”

The word is quiet, caught in the wind.

Everyone hears it.

Clarke swallows and seems to notice everyone is looking at her. People who fought for her, people who… didn’t. She turns and Bellamy sees when she catches Murphy’s gaze. His eyes water, but to his credit, he doesn’t look away.

“Come on, while they’re all distracted, we should get you out of here.” Bellamy mutters, but he can’t bring himself to look away. How can you look away from someone you love?

Gabriel laughs softly at his side. “Yes, we really should do something when everyone’s, as you say, _distracted.”_

“Oh, shut up.” Bellamy murmurs, pushing him to the side of Sanctum.

It’s difficult, walking away when she places herself at the forefront. It’s how it always has been – Bellamy leading people to the side, running the grounds, while Clarke stood in front of everyone. She may as well have put a target on her back every time, and yet he’s not sure if the thought has occurred to her. It’s how Raven said all those years ago – Queen and her Knight. He remembers feeling shame when she said it then, but nothing really has changed. If she walked to another planet, he would follow her there.

Except.

As Clarke stands in front of everyone, arms out, he thinks to himself of all those times. All the opportunities where he could’ve said something. Where… _she_ could’ve. It makes him spiral a bit – makes him wonder and careen out of control, if after all this time, that that is their destiny. A Queen.

And a knight.

“I don’t know if I should be thanking you, or cursing you.” Gabriel offers when Bellamy leads him to a small trail off to the side of the central area of Sanctum.

“Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be the first to be confused on which side I’m on.” Bellamy mutters, pulling him further. “I’m just doing my best to keep you from being ripped apart from everyone who thinks you’ve been lying to them for centuries.”

“I have been lying to everyone for centuries.”

“I wouldn’t lead with that.” Bellamy grunts, shoving him a bit when he looks behind his shoulder. “I owe you a great deal, so just let me help you. You sacrificed quite a lot to help me.”

He doesn’t say ‘us.’ He doesn’t say ‘Clarke.’

He says ‘me.’

Gabriel simply nods.

“Hey! Bellamy, what the hell is going on?”

The two freeze, Bellamy calming once Miller jogs to catch up, his gun in front of him. “Thank god, Miller, we gotta hide him.”

“Why?” Miller snaps. “He’s a part of the same group that killed Clarke. Excuse me, _tried_ to kill Clarke, but she’s a bad bitch that no one can kill.”

“You know,” Gabriel states. “After my limited interaction with her, I fully believe that.”

“Miller, Gabriel didn’t try to kill Clarke. He’s literally the only reason she’s still alive.”

Gabriel makes a face. “Actually, it could be argued that _you_ —”

“Do you have no self-preservation instincts? Trying to save you from Miller, thanks.” Bellamy snaps. “Miller, trust me, he’s fine.”

Miller clenches at that, tilting his head up. His eyes narrow, as if he’s surveying Gabriel up and down, but only relaxes when Bellamy throws him a look. “If you make one step out of place—”

“I appreciate how protective you are of Clarke, but we need to move.” Bellamy states, ushering the two forward.

“Never thought you’d stop someone threatening people on Clarke’s behalf.” Miller murmurs.

“It’s because it’s his territory and you’re stepping in it.” Gabriel offers, no longer fighting the quick pace Bellamy’s set.

“Hey, I’m saving you.”

“Just making an observation. I’m a scientist, I can do that.”

Miller makes a face. “I feel like, under different circumstances, we’d get along. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Why can’t we get along now?”

“Because I’ve had my fill with cults. And you started one, so pass.”

“Seems like there’s a story there.”

“Okay, I’m annoyed with you again. We’re trying to save him? Really?” Miller exclaims, although Bellamy knows Miller enough to know that he doesn’t mean it. In fact, Miller cracks a smile and Bellamy can’t help but mimic. The man leans close to Bellamy. “And here we are again.”

Bellamy sighs. “Here we are again.”

“Can’t a guy just surf on the beach without being shot at? Is that too much to ask?”

“Still on about the surfing, Miller?” Bellamy laughs.

“Well, have I surfed? No! I’m very much still on the surfing. This moon has water, doesn’t it?”

Gabriel offers a pensive look. “You know, they did offer surfing classes with the tai chi they did in the mornings. Something about the waves and how it brought inner peace—”

“We’ve made a terrible mistake.” Miller says, wide-eyed. “Give the Primes back their power. At least long enough to teach me how to surf.”

“Miller—” Bellamy chuckles.

“Just for the day, then we can take them down again.”

Bellamy can’t help it – he laughs. He laughs because it’s all so ridiculous. The entire situation is more ridiculous than he ever could imagine it. He’s escorting a several hundred-year fake god to safety while his ex-best friend rants about surfing and cults. Meanwhile, a mob could have easily taken over the city for all he knows. Everything is so ridiculous, he finds himself laughing.

“Oh no,” Miller states. “You broke him.”

“I broke him?” Gabriel asks. “You’re the one who hasn’t stopped talking since you arrived – you definitely broke him. I can give you receipts.”

“You can give me wha – no matter. Bellamy, can you hear me?” Miller says, his words louder than he had been speaking. “Give me a signal if you can hear me!”

“I’m laughing, I’m not dying, Miller.” Bellamy sighs.

“I cannot remember the last time you laughed, how would I know?”

“That’s… well, sad. But I’m alright, I can hear you fine, it’s just all… ridiculous. Everything is so ridiculous. We just finished a pseudo-war, and the first thing people wanted to do is kill a pretend god for stealing bodies of their loved ones. Sometimes I think the Ark wasn’t so bad, you know?”

Miller makes a face. “It was definitely more boring.”

Gabriel gives a pensive look. “You know, when we’re not about to be murdered, I’d love to sit and talk to you about that. I remember hearing about the Ark in progress, but I never got to see the final design. I’d love to discuss the inner workings—”

“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you right there.” Miller says, putting his hands up. “I lived on the Ark for seventeen years. I walked those halls, I ate in the cafeteria. I could not tell you a single thing about the actual Ark itself.”

Gabriel recoils. “But—”

“Not a single. Goddamn. Thing.” 

Gabriel turns to Bellamy. He snorts. “Don’t look at me – I can just tell you the best way to clean the hallways.”

Bellamy didn’t think Gabriel could look as heartbroken as he did when saying goodbye to Josephine, but he has to admit, it’s pretty close. Enough so, Bellamy feels slightly bad. “We’ll try to find an engineer. Actually, Clarke would be a good person to talk to. Her dad ran the whole engineering department.”

“Man, I was with her for an entire afternoon in that tent. I can’t believe I didn’t think to ask.”

“We had a few other things going on at the time.”

“Is he insane?” Miller whispers, leaning in.

“He’s lived for hundreds of years, he’s definitely something.”

“Bellamy!”

Whirling around, he sees Octavia sprinting toward them, a sword still in her hand. He finds himself smiling a bit, genuine relief in seeing her move toward him. “O!”

She’s not even out of breath when she reaches them. It doesn’t escape Bellamy – or Octavia for that matter – that Miller takes a few steps back when she approaches. He tenses and grips his gun as she does, his joking demeanor changing in a flash. “I saw everyone rushing Gabriel, I-I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

“Clarke doing okay?” Bellamy asks. “Is she calming everyone down?”

“She’s being Clarke – they’re all riled up, but Indra’s helping. I wouldn’t have left if I thought they were going to start fighting again.” Octavia says earnestly to Bellamy, and he knows she’s telling the truth. “What are we going to do about Gabriel?”

“I have my setup in the woods, you both know that.” Gabriel states. “I can just go back there.”

“Won’t that be the first place they look?” Octavia asks. “Your people know where you’ve been staying. They will come for you.”

“I know this land quite literally better than anyone, I’ve been living on it forever.” Gabriel insists. “I will be alright. I can live off of it. And maybe – after everything – that’s my penance for it all. Everything I did, every piece of pain I caused. I can live the rest of my days alone.”

“That’s stupid.”

The person says what Bellamy’s thinking, but it’s coming from a person he least expects. Miller is shaking his head exasperatedly. “See, this is the issue with you brains, you don’t look at the whole picture. You get stuck in small, insignificant things that you never take a step back. You can’t just decide you’re going to punish yourself with loneliness – trust me, that is a pain worse than death. In my darkest moments, I would not have gotten through without Jackson. Or at the Dropship, without the 100. People have made the bleakest moments bearable. And you deciding to cut yourself off from everyone doesn’t bring back the lives lost – and you leaving doesn’t bring respect to their names. We lost… _so_ many people. Good people. People who didn’t deserve to die. But if I just fucked off into the forest and spent my days waiting to die? I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. That’s not life. That’s a terrible ending. It’s pathetic and it’s stupid.”

Miller clears his throat when he’s finished speaking and shuffles.

“How do you really feel, Miller?” Bellamy laughs, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

Except Miller’s words stay with him. He’s grateful, for saying something he never quite knew how to. Bellamy smiles at the man, glad he’s by his side again. Miller returns it, but his gaze is still weary on Octavia. Bellamy knows Octavia can feel it, because it’s not even aimed at him, and he feels uncomfortable. “I’m going to check on Clarke and find Jackson.” Miller states. “You seem to have this under control.” He turns to Gabriel. “Try not to fuck this chance up.”

Gabriel snorts. “Charming.”

“But right!” Miller calls over his shoulder as he stalks away.

Octavia sighs, peeing at the ground. Gabriel watches the two Blakes. “Did you two have a bad breakup or something?” He asks.

Bellamy can’t help it, he bursts out laugh again. Running his hands down his face, he is in full stitches as Octavia throws him a nasty look. “In a manner of speaking.” Bellamy manages, trying to get himself under control. Really, he’s losing all sense of reality at this point.

He almost feels happy.

“Are we interrupting?”

Bellamy sobers when he turns and faces a line of figures in the trees, guns pointed directly at him.

‘Almost’ was the key word, apparently.

***

He sits on the floor of the cell. Time wastes away, but he has nothing but time. He has what Clarke never had now – he has time to sit and wait and think.

Bellamy runs his hands down the lines of the drawing on the ground. It’s beautiful. He knows it’s Clarke’s work, even if he didn’t already know this was Clarke’s cell. Bellamy isn’t entirely sure what he was expecting when he went searching for it, but he knows whatever answers he wanted, he never got. Instead, he feels like he’s been handed a horror story he never wanted to watch.

Drawings litter the cell, each more beautiful than the next. A part of him is grateful that they gave her something to draw with, so her sanity was kept as intact as it could be in such a small room. But he can’t bring himself to look at the back wall, where line after line is etched onto it, numbering days that seem unimaginable.

Bellamy bites his cheek and tries to feel her, even though he knows she’s gone.

_Hurry._

He wonders what she was going to say. Bellamy knows it wasn’t that one word, but he’ll spend the rest of his life guessing. Instead of ever knowing, he sits on the cell ground, tracing the lines of trees and the sun in the sky.

“You have to stop coming in here.”

Bellamy doesn’t look up at Raven’s voice. “Go away.”

“Actually, no.” Raven states. “You’re the one who said we have to do better for her. And I can tell you right now, sitting in this cell and wallowing with guilt is not how you do that.”

“Raven—”

“I gave you space. We _all_ gave you space. But you’re not the only one grieving here, alright? I know how much Clarke meant to you, but she was the closest thing I had to a sister. She injected herself with nightblood so Emori wouldn’t have to. Monty was with her in Mt. Weather. Murphy—” Raven huffs. “I will never understand his friendship with her, but it was there and it was real. So you need to stop this, because it isn’t healthy.”

“We left her to die.” Bellamy states. “To burn alive.”

“There was nothing more we could’ve done. There was—”

“How do you know?” Bellamy stands and shouts. It’s a fury, it’s a rage, it’s all encompassing and it’s everything he’s felt in the darkest moments he’s had. “What if, she was right there, what if we left and she was running toward us? What if—”

“Bellamy.” Raven states softly. She places her hands on the sides of his face, her eyes tearing up. “She wasn’t running toward us. She wasn’t right around the corner. I doubt she… I doubt she ever made it back to the bunker.”

“How can you say that?” Bellamy snaps, trying to take her hands off her face. Raven’s grip is shockingly strong and he fails, squeezing his eyes shut. “You don’t know—”

“I do.”

“You don’t know everything, Raven! I know you like to think you do, but you don’t!”

“Bellamy,” Raven states, unwavered by his vitriol. “The power didn’t come on until we were already at the Ark. Which means, Clarke wasn’t able to align the satellites until we were at the Ark. She wasn’t around the corner. She was at the radio tower when the power came on. She had no chance of making it back. If we had waited for her, we would’ve died. Or would’ve been waiting forever.”

Her words take his breath away. She says it with such assurance – he wants to find fault in it. But, as usual with Raven’s logic, he can’t. He wants to argue, he wants to yell, but he finds the words are gone. “I-I can feel her pain here.” He admits, no longer trying to wrench Raven’s hands off, instead, his own resting over hers.

“This is not how Clarke is meant to be remembered.” Raven states, her words soft. “In a box, locked up. There’s a reason she never told us about her time in here – can you imagine? Locking Clarke Griffin up in a box to die? It’s not how she’s meant to be remembered. You have to let her out, and you have to let yourself out.”

Bellamy squeezes his eyes shut, a few tears rolling down his cheeks. “I don’t know if I can let her go.”

“You have to. Because it isn’t fair to keep her here.” She says, bringing her hands down and wrapping them in his.

Raven pulls him so that he steps close to the door. Again. And again. Again until he’s at the doorway, free hand braced against the frame. Turning around one more time, Bellamy swallows. “It’s the only place I can feel her.”

“It’s not her, Bellamy.” Raven says, but she lets go of his hand and begins down the hallway, leaving him alone in the doorway.

He takes another look. At the drawings, the lines, the small bed in the corner of the room. He sucks in a breath, as if he can breathe her in, but Raven’s right: it’s not her.

“I-I’m so sorry.”

He moves out of the doorway and closes the door.

***

There’s so much yelling and Clarke’s head cannot take much more of it. She feels the weight of the empty Mind Drive against the base of her spine and is resisting the urge to cut it out. It feels heavy, the Prime technology, in the back of her neck. Like everything else that has happened in the last week, she feels violated, not herself, out of her body and mind. It’s taking everything she has not to collapse in the middle of Sanctum right now, pinching the bridge of her nose to try and stop the world from tilt on its axis.

Maybe that part is because Bellamy said he loved her.

_Loved_ her.

It sounded so simple when he said it. Like it was an inconsequential statement that he had said ever day before.

Clarke had loved Bellamy since she was a teenager. That was a fact. A fact that she buried into desperate parts of herself, never to uncover. She didn’t know how she would survive the strength of it if she didn’t. She felt like her love for Bellamy would make her collapse. It was a tricky thing, Clarke’s love.

It tended to kill people.

Finn, Lexa… Clarke love is a graveyard with tombstones of people taken too early.

Clarke tries to push it out of her thoughts. She supposes he meant it in the way he loves Raven or Monty. A familial sort of love. She’s felt like she hasn’t been a part of that definition for so long, perhaps this was his way of telling her she’s his family too.

Clarke will not create Bellamy’s tombstone.

“Your ears are bleeding. Perhaps you should rest.”

Clarke startles when Indra moves close to her, her gun still across her body, but no longer at the ready. Indra is peering at the tumultuous groups before them, screaming at whoever will listen. Clarke understands the impulse, honestly.

Bringing her hands up to her ears, Clarke is surprised to find that Indra is right. Her black blood coats her fingertips and Clarke lets out a hollow laugh. “Suppose I should’ve saw that coming. I have a nasty headache.”

“I would be convinced you were not human if you didn’t. Although I’m still not entirely convinced you are.”

Clarke isn’t sure if Indra is serious – because honestly, when has Indra ever made a joke – but when her lips curl up, Clarke finds herself laughing gently. Indra doesn’t laugh, but her lips form a tight line like she’s trying not to, keeping her face as neutral as possible for the rising tension in Sanctum. “I’m really glad you’re here.” Clarke admits.

Indra startles at this, lifting an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine how my presence is any significance to whatever you plan on doing.”

“Oh, I don’t have a plan.” Clarke says honestly, closing her eyes. “I rarely do. Or rather, I have a plan which I feel like honestly would be pretty effective, and then someone does something to blow it up. And it just repeats itself.”

“Not easy being in charge.” Indra states, gaze straight ahead.

“I’m not in charge here. Nor can I imagine I will be. There are so many other leaders – and besides. My own people just let the Primes take my body because they dislike me so much. I don’t think I’m anyone’s first choice to lead.”

“I know the Flame was flawed. And you feel strongly about it. But having the knowledge of everyone who came before you is helpful. I spent my life protecting the Flame and Commander. It was my job to serve, and I served many. The common thread of the most effective leaders was not the ones people liked the most. It was the ones who were willing to put their people before themselves. So I must say, Clarke Griffin,” Indra finally turns to face her. “We could do a lot worse than having you in charge.”

Clarke swallows, feeling her eyes well with tears. She blames it on exhaustion, she blames it on her tired body. But she never had anyone say anything like that to her. Clarke feels her past is littered with her mistakes, and yet these kind words make her want to crumble. “You must not know me very well.” She manages, her voice raspy.

“You should know better, Clarke. You were the leader of the Sky People. You’ll find there is little I don’t know about you. It was my job.” Indra turns back to the scene before her.

With Gabriel gone and the aftermath of fighting drifting around them like a smoke from the fires off in the distance. People are hugging, checking on loved ones, as the sun begins to set. “This will not be the end of the animosity. Peace is fragile at best right now.”

“Indeed. But there is peace now. You of all people should know, when there is a moment of calm, you must take it. So take it, Clarke. Grieve. Be with Madi. We will deal with what comes next tomorrow.”

She places her hand on Clarke’s.

Clarke sucks in a breath. It’s such a motherly touch, she feels herself cracking. Her lower lips trembles and she nods at Indra, desperately telling herself to pull it together. Placing her hand over her mouth, she tries to stifle a sob, everything crashing all at once.

That’s how it always goes, isn’t it?

She feels nothing.

Then everything.

A universe inside her, expanding until she can’t contain it anymore.

Clarke turns around and moves to get out of the center of Sanctum, the center of everything. Clarke finds herself wishing Bellamy was here, the only place she could think that’s safe enough to hide.

Clarke tries to find a way out, tries to find somewhere she can deteriorate.

Except people are watching her.

She turns and sees them all in a huddle. Murphy, Raven, Emori, and Echo. People she once would’ve gone to for comfort. They stare at her, Raven even lifting a hand. If it is to motion her forward, Clarke doesn’t see. She can’t bring herself to do so. While they are people she loves with more than she can say, in this moment, she knows there is no comfort in their touch. In their words. It isn’t something repaired in a moment, nor something repaired through forgetting.

Rushing out of the center of the Sanctum, Clarke, pushes past the throngs of people checking to make sure they were alright and the shouts of the various factions. It’s loud and overwhelming, and she simply needs to get out. Her heart is trying to climb its way out of her chest, and when it doesn’t, it feels like it shatters. She covers her mouth, all but clamping her hand against her cheeks as she tries to stifle it, but she can’t get away.

“Woah, hang on—” Someone grabs her and Clarke’s instinctive reaction is to fight them off, but when she sees Miller’s determined face in front of her, her panic quiets. She allows Miller to wrestle her off to the side into a small house, shouting as he inspects it for any residents. When he seems content that there isn’t any, he returns back to her, grabbing her arms. “Clarke, can you hear me?”

She nods her head, shaking it almost frantically as the sobs peek through her fingers and all but trickle down like rain. She opens her mouth to tell Miller that she’s fine – that he should fine Jackson or help Indra – but as soon as she lowers her hand, the cries are unleashed. He pulls her into his chest, wrapping both arms around her back as she attempts to stifle herself with her hands, nails digging into the sides of her cheeks so hard she’s surprised she doesn’t break skin.

Clarke allows herself this moment of shattering. She allows it because she isn’t sure when she’ll be able to have such a moment again. They come so rarely, it’s like catching fireflies in the night, dimming once the sun rises. The more she cries, the tighter Miller holds her. He smells like sweat and dirt, and it’s oddly comforting after being stuck in metal of her mind. It didn’t smell of anything but disinfectant, dizzying the more she stayed. Perhaps that was the slow deterioration of her brain, but it was nauseating all the same.

When she manages to calm herself slightly, she pulls back from his hug until they break apart, Miller more concerned than she’s ever seen him. “Are you alright?”

Clarke opens her mouth to say she’s fine – what she always says, she’s fine, she’s fine, she’s _fine_ – but what comes out is, “My mom died and I couldn’t save her.”

Tears roll down her cheeks at the words. She said it aloud.

It’s real.

Clarke isn’t sure what she was expecting when she said it aloud, but all it did was crack her further open. Raw and pained, broken and hurting, there she stands.

It takes a few seconds, but Clarke begins to feel sheepish, quickly scrubbing under her eyes. “Sorry, I-I- sorry.”

Miller shakes his head. “Can’t possibly figure out why you’re apologizing.”

“This,” she gestures at herself. “I-I typically don’t, I mean, it’s not alright for me to—”

“Clarke, I say this for multiple reasons. One, because I love you. Two, because I’m so relieved you’re alive. But mainly three, because I don’t think anyone has actually said this to you. Your pain is not a burden. That’s why we’re here, is to help share it. You can’t bear it all yourself. No one should ever have that much weight on their shoulders.”

Clarke recoils.

_I bear it, so they don’t have to._

She may has well have the words tattooed on her arm, for how much they’ve engrained themselves into her soul. It’s the only thing she knows to be true, the only way she knows how to move forward.

“What?” He asks.

Clarke isn’t sure what to say. She’s so surprised that is able to calm herself fully. “Nothing, you honestly sound like Bellamy.”

Miller snorts. “Should be. I taught the dude everything he knows. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Clarke shakes her head, wiping under her eyes some more. “ _Bellamy_. Is he alright? Is Gabriel alright?”

“Woah, calm down, I can’t have you panicking right after I expertly calmed you down.” Miller states, putting his hands up. “They’re fine – they’re just trying to figure out what to do with Gabriel. He offered to live a life of solitude as penance. You know, the two of you have a lot in common. Self-sacrificing, over a hundred years old—”

“You’re over a hundred years old too, you know.”

“We’re not talking about me.” Miller states, the corner of his mouth turning up. Clarke can’t help it, she cracks a smile. “There! That’s all I wanted. You don’t smile much on a good day, but I wanted to give it a go.”

Clarke falters at that. Miller seems to panic, but Clarke marvels at how true of a statement it is. “It’s fine, Miller. We should probably help them hide him. Make sure he doesn’t run off to be alone.”

“Because that’s your thing?”

Clarke sighs, shoving him a bit.

“Before we step out, you alright?” Miller asks. “I mean, obviously you’re not alright, but you okay to go out there?”

Clarke ponders this for a moment. “Do I have a choice?”

“Yeah,” Miller states. “Clarke, I know it’s not always felt like it, but you don’t owe them anything.”

“It’s not about owing, Miller.” Clarke says. “It’s about making sure everyone survives.”

“Everyone survived, Clarke. We made it, we’re here.”

Clarke’s lip trembles. “Not everyone.”

Miller’s face falls and he grabs her, pulling her back into his chest for a hug. It’s not as tense as before, no longer banding his arms around her to keep her from completely falling apart. Instead, it gentle and close. “I know there’s nothing I can say. When my dad died, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He gave me his spot in the bunker, I found out later. He didn’t even put his name in, he put mine in twice. I was such a disappointing son. He was in the guard and I was a common thief.”

Clarke pulls away. “You can be anything but disappointing, Miller. You have to know that.”

Miller gives her a weak smile. “You have to say that,” he breathes into her ear. “I’m giving you a really excellent hug.” She laughs into his shoulder, but doesn’t disagree. “But seriously, you alright to go back out there?”

“Clarke!” Someone shouts from outside the building. “Clarke, where are you?”

Clarke pulls away. “Doesn’t look like I actually do have a choice, does it?” She says, taking a breath and wiping her face one last time. “The only choice – it’s an oxymoron.”

“Um… okay?”

She laughs because she finds it funny. She’s the only one this time.

***

He’s pounding on the door and it’s giving Clarke a headache. She wants to tell him to stop, but when can you tell Murphy anything? Instead, she lets him rail against the walls, scream, and say all sorts of things she’s never heard before. It’s almost impressive, if the whole situation wasn’t so messed up.

“How are you just sitting there?” Murphy cries, whirling around after a good half and hour of screaming. His voice is raw and eyes red. “Do something!”

“What can we possibly do, Murphy?” Clarke sighs. “We’re locked in the middle of Polis. Even if we got out of this room, there are guards everywhere. They could easily throw us back in here – or worse, kill us. I, quite frankly, have a feeling it’ll be the latter. So, I’m not sure what exactly you want me to do.”

“I want you to… to… _do something!_ Isn’t that your thing? You always have a plan? Always are inserting yourself where you don’t belong?” Clarke huffs a hollow laugh at that. “Who even have you become?”

“I ask myself that same question ever day.” She says to herself, running her fingers on the rug she’s sitting on. It’s made of some sort of animal, but she can’t decide if it’s a deer or an elk. It’s smooth and short haired, sticking through her jeans.

Murphy rounds on her, probably to yell some more, but then stops for some reason. She looks up and he’s staring at her. “Wow, Mount Weather really fucked you up, didn’t it?”

Clarke barks out a humorless laugh, mainly because he’s surprised her. “I suppose it did.”

“Well,” Murphy states, groaning as he sits down on the rug with her. “Join the club. I’ve been fucked up for a long time. You ain’t special.”

Clarke giggles a bit at that, running her hands up and down the rug. “No, I suppose I’m not.”

Murphy surveys her, not saying anything for a few moments, which is more unsettling than anything else he’s done in a while. It’s odd to sit in silence with Murphy, because she always seems to know what’s going through his brain. Mainly, because he says it the moment it hits him. Except now, he’s not and she isn’t sure how to take it.

“You inserting yourself isn’t a bad thing.” He offers.

Clarke is surprised by this. “I thought you of all people hated when I was in charge.”

“Hey, I hate everyone who’s in charge. I have issues with authority – haven’t you read my file?”

Clarke snorts.

“Someone’s gotta do it. It’s a shitty job, I’ll give you that. I’m not jealous of you.”

“If you were, I’d think there was something seriously wrong with you.”

“There is a lot seriously wrong with me, but not in this instance.” Murphy smiles, but it’s weak. “It’s not fair, is it? Gotta make the impossible decisions, then people hate you for it.”

Clarke can’t bring herself to look at him. “I hate me for it.” She whispers.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” He says. “But know this—”

He reaches and places his hand under her chin, gentler than she’s ever experienced with Murphy. “I won’t judge you. Who am I to judge? You seen half the shit I’ve done? I got no ground to stand on. At least, at the end of the world, you’ll have a cockroach at your side. And, probably, literal cockroaches.”

Clarke can’t help it: for the first time since Mount Weather, she laughs for real.

***

“Clarke!”

He hears her name being called out and Murphy winces at it. He knows they had a small moment in the castle, but he wonders if – when the stakes aren’t quite as high – he’ll be able to look her in the eye. She moves in a very Clarke-like way and it’s almost off-putting after days of Josie. The woman was psychotic, but definitely had a flair very un-Clarke-like. Watching Clarke in her body again felt like putting his shoes on the wrong feet: awkward and wrong.

She rushes out of a building with Miller close behind her, sprinting at the person who called her name. Murphy frowns when he sees people gesturing at the shed in the corner. “Hey,” he nudges Emori at his side. “Isn’t that where they put Russell?”

She turns her attention to where Murphy points and connects the scene. “Yeah, it is. Wait, are they asking Clarke to go there? After Russell killed Abby?”

“And her.” Raven offers. “We should make sure nothing escalates.”

“Nothing escalates? Hasn’t it already escalated as high as it can go?” Emori cries. “He killed her mom and tried to kill her to bring his daughter back to life. I think that’s about as escalated as it can be.”

“She’s not talking about Russell.” Murphy states.

Clarke tilts her head in the direction of the shed, and shares a brief look with Miller. He opens his mouth to say something – argue, agree, Murphy isn’t sure – but Clarke pushes past him. “Aw, fuck, we gotta—”

“Do what?” Echo grabs his arm and stops him. Murphy is startled enough not to fight back – and also intelligent enough to know there is no way he could win against Echo. “Murphy, need I remind you of the past few—”

“I know what I did, okay!” Murphy snaps. “But that is a bad idea, I don’t care who the person is. Letting someone confront the person who just murdered their mother this soon after it happened – that is a bad idea. So let me go and join me, or let me go and stay here – either way, _let. Me. Go._ ”

To her credit, she does.

As soon as Murphy is able, he jogs to catch up, hearing some footsteps behind him. “You think this is a good idea?” Emori asks when she falls in line with him. “After, you know—”

“I have no idea.” Murphy admits. “But given my current track record with decisions, I’d say my judgment of good or bad is off in general.”

Emori winces at that, bringing her hand into his. “We all make mistakes.”

“Yeah, well, some not as brutally intentional as mine currently.” He sighs. “You know the worst part? I knew it was the wrong thing. I kept telling myself it was alright, but that was because I thought I’d never have to see Clarke again. I knew it was fucked up what I was doing, but I didn’t think I’d have to _face_ Clarke. She was dead! She was…” Murphy sighs. “God, and now Abby, I-I—” He doesn’t slow down, but there’s a change in his gait, simply saying her name. “You know how messed up my family was. Abby, she… she was there for me, when others weren’t. And when she died, she hated me. Because I killed her daughter.”

“She didn’t hate you. And you didn’t kill Clarke – you had nothing to do with it.”

“I was willing to do anything it took to get those Mind Drives. And I tried – Josie asked me to help kill her for good. The only reason we didn’t is because _you_ decided to stand up for her. That wasn’t my call, it was yours.”

“Clarke will forgive you. She said she was proud of you—”

“Come on, you’ve seen Clarke when she’s upset. We’ve both been on the receiving end.”

“You need to stop assuming what her reaction will be and let her react how she does. And for what it’s worth, I think this is a good call.”

“Thank god,” Murphy snorts. “Finally a good decision.”

“Statistically, it was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Murphy rolls his eyes, but can’t help but look at Emori with love. He wonders what he did to deserve such a woman – and then realizes he probably shouldn’t think too hard about it. When the guilt is crushing and he’s feeling overwhelmed, all he has to do is look at her and it ebbs for a moment. And right now? The guilt is undeniable.

They’re weaving their way through the Wonkru army, pushing past guards and trying to catch up to where Clarke and Miller are. Murphy even thinks they’ll get there before the two vanish inside the shed, when a group of people block their path.

Murphy stumbles out of his fast pace when they do so, unsure of how to proceed with the figures in front of him. A group of Sanctum citizens move in front of where he is, blocking him from catching Clarke before she ducks in the tent. “I’m sorry, can you move? I gotta—”

“Prime Daniel?”

Murphy stares at the man in front him, blinking. Murphy thinks he’s seen him before somewhere, but can’t quite put his hand on where. He’s holding the hands of a few children – and there are several people surrounding him.

Emori nudges his side. “Daniel?”

Murphy turns. “What are you talking about Em—”

“Prime _Daniel_.” Emori snaps, stamping on his foot.

“ _Ow!_ What the – oh, right. Yup, that’s me. Daniel.”

Murphy could smack himself.

“And Prime Kaylee.” A woman approaches Emori, taking her hands in hers. “At last, you’ve returned to us.”

Emori smiles weakly at her, but doesn’t say anything.

“We’ve waited for so long. I can’t believe you are finally back.”

“Yup, we’re back.” Murphy states. “Super exciting – actually, we need to—”

“Are you going to take us home?”

A small girl emerges from behind the knees of the woman, gazing up at Murphy with big, innocent eyes. Emori takes her hand away from the woman. “I’m sorry?”

“You promised!” The woman exclaims. “Last time you were here, you promised you’d take us home.”

Murphy opens his mouth, but finds that he doesn’t know what to say. The options before him seem stacked against him, nothing before him that he could say that wouldn’t immediately give him away. One look at Emori makes him realize, he’s not the only one who feels this way.

“Home?” Raven asks, pushing forward and saving them both. “Isn’t this your home?”

The woman turns to her and then back to Emori. “They promised.”

The girl peers up. “Are you here to take us home?”

***

Clarke sets herself.

“This is a bad idea.”

“Miller, please.”

“Clarke, no good can come from this.”

“Clarke knows that this is not an emotional matter.” Indra states on the other side of her. “Russell says the only person he’d see is Clarke and we are barely maintaining a balance as it is. So, if he only will see Clarke, unfortunately, it must happen.”

“Clarke, remember what I said? You have a choice. Don’t let anyone take that away from—”

“You Sky People do not understand what must be done.” Indra snaps, rounding on Miller.

“What happened to Wonkru?” Miller seethes. “All bullshit, right?”

“I think you and I both know it always was.”

Miller opens his mouth, but Clarke puts her hands up. “Miller, I appreciate the concern, but Indra is right. Unless you want to get thrown into another war, if Russell will only see me, it’s me he gets.”

“But—”

“I think she made herself clear.” Indra states.

“Hey – this isn’t like the bunker. You don’t get to be her mouthpiece because Octavia didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. Clarke can speak for herself.”

“And I _am_ , Miller.” Clarke states. She places a hand on her shoulder. “You are a wonderful friend, and I’m so grateful for your concern. But I have to go in there.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“He said only Clarke.” Indra offers, undeterred by Millers hostility.

“I said—”

“Miller, please.” Clarke states, taking in a breath. “I won’t be able to do this if you don’t stop.”

His mouth snaps shut. Clenching his jaw, he makes a frustrated noise. “I’ll wait.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m waiting.”

Clarke can’t help but feel grateful for him. Bellamy was right all those years ago – Miller is someone you wanted at your side. She squeezes his shoulder one last time before ducking into the shed.

It’s dark and cold, the only light from the small windows lining the walls. If she didn’t already know there was a figure in the room, she would’ve thought she’d been fooled. Except in the corner is a huddled figure, shadowed by corners of the cell.

“Clarke,” the raspy voice calls. “You’ve come.”

“Yes.” Clarke states, straightening herself up. “Apparently no one else would do.”

“You must let me—”

The man moves in the cell into the light.

Clarke has never seen Russell like this. Stripped away from his lavish robes, his paint mussed on his face. Desperate, and most importantly, alone. “I can’t imagine what you could have to say to me.”

“I keep replaying that night, all that time ago. Underneath Sanctum. You paralyzed.”

Clarke swallows.

“I made a choice. A choice that haunts me. With the Red Sun, I had no control. I had no control when I slaughtered my entire family. I simply woke up and they were all dead, my hands covered in their blood. The only person who survived was Gabriel, who was at the beach doing research. The only reason I didn’t end it then, is I told myself I could bring them back. That it was a mistake. But you. You were a choice.”

Clarke doesn’t move.

“I chose to take your life, even after knowing all the stories Jordan told me about you. About your people. I took a calculated risk, and it failed.”

“Did ask me here to tell me you failed? Because I did not need you to tell me, as I’m standing right here.”

“Did you meet her?”

Clarke tilts her head. “I beg your pardon?”

“My Josie. Did you meet her? Did you look into her eyes as she died? Because you rarely do to your victims, don’t you?”

Clarke takes a step back.

The question is cold. The question is calculated. It doesn’t sound anything like the Russell she’s spoken to. Even at his worst, he was never cruel. He was a murderer, but he never taunted.

Straightening, Clarke collects herself. “And you are forced to see yours every day in the bodies you stole. Like my mother’s. Which is worse? Someone who can’t look their victims in the eyes, or someone who does and feels nothing?”

Russell steps further into the light, the beams falling over his face. It’s oddly gaunt, haunted, and calm. In a ways she isn’t expecting, the light beams casting shadows that carve the edges of his face. “Strange, isn’t it? That I’m here and you’re not. We’re not that different, you and I.”

“I would never take the bodies of my people to do what you did. To live further.”

“Maybe not. But you do take the bodies of your people when it serves you.”

“Listen!” She shouts, taking an aggressive step forward.

She’s close to him. So close she can feel his breath. She could really just… kill him.

Clarke sees her mother. The woman who raised her, who loved her, who taught her strength and medicine. She could easily kill him. It would be the only kill no one would question her about. No one would blink. They would understand. The anger from a righteous daughter.

“I owe nothing to you.” Clarke seethes.

“There she is.” Russell states, a grin curling on his face. “Wanheda.”

Clarke recoils. “Excuse me?”

He fury, her anger is shocked out of her. The whispered nickname she grew to loathe seems foreign on his lips, but as if he as familiar with it as she.

“I was once told that love was a weakness.” He says thoughtfully. “I once believed it to be true – perhaps that was my downfall. But you and I, it’s not our weakness. It’s others. It is a weakness to be loved by us. Doesn’t end particularly well, does it?”

Clarke takes a step back.

“No,” Russell answers his own question. “No, it doesn’t.”

Clarke whirls around to leave. Her hands are shaking, she can barely see anything before her. She leaves.

She leaves because she knows if she didn’t, she’d set out on proving him right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Wow, that went WAY longer than I expected lol Episode One: In Peace!
> 
> A lot of things: I thought it was crazy they didn’t have Shaedheda and Wanheda go head to head – PLUS he knows stuff about her because he’s been with Lexa AND Clarke had the Flame in her head. So prepare for some severe manipulation in coming chapters. I’m keeping Russell around, because I thought it’d be more interesting to have it as a void!stiles kinda situation, which is actually what I thought it’d be in the show.
> 
> Also – I brought back the children asking ‘are you here to take us home’ because I found it so odd that they never revisited that. SO, that is a HUGE portion of the plot – the lore around these children. 
> 
> And yes, Bellamy and Clarke are complete idiots – they know they love the other, but thinks the other doesn’t feel the same way. Because the drama! But the love is there, we all know it is.
> 
> I hope you liked it and if you have time, leave a note! Love you all <3 <3 <3


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